Monadnock Regional Milers

Last month it must have seemed I was moaning and groaning how my tAugust Coaches Corner raining was not going well, and I needed to refocus and find a reason to rededicate myself to training, and to regroup and refresh both mentally and physically. I’m happy to say that the time spent refocusing has seemed to pay dividends as my last couple of workouts on the track have seemed to be on the up and up. I’ve gotten to the end of the workout tired, but not dead.

Which brings me to the point I’m going to try to make here. Sometimes we need to go through a tough patch in order to give us perspective to move ahead. Often times, when an athlete has been on a run of good luck they think that as long as they keep doing what they’ve been doing of late, things will just keep going great. This thinking often blinds them, when invariably something goes wrong, maybe a slight little injury, maybe some runs that just don’t go that great happen, and they continue to think if they just keep doing what they’re doing…

We often can’t really think back further than the last three weeks to a month and a half with real clarity if things have been going well. All too often we get to a bad patch in our running and look around and really can’t explain where we went wrong. We often think if we just work a little harder then we can get it back on track. However, the opposite is often true. If we’ve gone beyond our current capacity, dug a little too deep, working harder just invites injury or burn out.

I coached a runner that came in as a freshman, a tiny little thing, and she finished real high at the State Championships. Over the next few years, as she grew from a girl to a young woman, she had continuous injury problems that never allowed her to run as hard or as fast as she would have liked to. She saw numerous doctors and numerous specialists in the field, but nothing met with any real success. She headed off to college wishing to run on the cross country team there, but without being able to train continuously, couldn’t meet the qualifying time to make the team.

She continued to run, less frequently and even participated in a couple hip and knee specialty trials that fitted her with orthotics without any real success. Living with a couple non runners who decided to try out running a half marathon, she decided to give the training a shot and to run it with them. Their training schedule called for a slow build up with no real emphasis on time. While they had a goal of a sub 2 hour half marathon, they didn’t focus their training to meet that specific time.

During her training she noticed that she didn’t hurt the way she had last time. I remember during the various seasons, her being in pain to the point of tears. She was surprised by the lack of pain but chalked it up to the fact the running was way slower than when she was in high school. In the end, she got her sub 2 hour half marathon and now is able to enjoy running again.

To finish up the story and make my point, her “tough patch” lasted almost seven years. We get down when things don’t go right for a couple weeks, or a month or two, but we can’t really conceive of seven years. I’m sure she’d like to have some of those years back, like maybe her senior year, or when she needed to run the qualifying time to make her college team, or the time she ran the lead leg on the 4 x 800 meter relay squad that came so tantalizingly close to winning the State Championship. But the other day during the Wednesday Night Workout, under tough conditions, she crushed her fourth Wednesday workout in a row. Her times were just a couple seconds behind what I was running, and I’ve been feeling good recently. We’re all in this for the long run, and that fact can elude us when we want something so bad, like running a certain time, or race well over a certain distance. In it for the long run got reemphasized again this week as I stood at the finishing corner to the Dublin 5K. On a hot and muggy day, on one of the more difficult 5K courses out there, I watched Bill Engle finish up his race. His legs were cramping a bit, but he was still moving.

While everyone wants to run well all the time, we tend to run the best when it means the most. Get out there and enjoy it.

Over the last couple months at the track on Wednesday nights, I’ve gotten a number of questions regarding training. A couple of the questions have been asked by multiple people which got me thinking that maybe I should start posting the questions and the answers I’ve given so anyone can read them. So as the questions come in, I’m going to regularly post them on the enews and they’ll be added to the website regularly as well.

Q: I’ve just started running again (after some time off) and don’t feel ready to begin running fast? (track work/speed work)

A: If you’ve literally just begun running (today) then take two weeks of running at least four times a week, to get the legs used to running again, and then you should be ready to start training more aggressively. However, when you begin being more aggressive, you need to remember that you’ve taken some time away and might not be able to come back right where you left off. I would suggest a training pace one to two minutes slower than your 5K PR as the goal to begin with, and then move towards that goal pace again. Another way to do it is to still target that goal pace but anticipate that you may not make it all the way through the workout. I would also suggest being ready to “pull the plug” early in the workout. Nothing slows the training process down like being injured.

Q: I’m not sure what my goal pace should be? (I haven’t “raced” a 5K in forever!)

A: Your goal 5K pace should be a challenge for you, but something realistic for you to try after. If you haven’t raced 5K in a couple of years, I would take your previous best (maybe disregarding if you were a speedster in high school) and add a minute or two to your 5K. Once you’ve given that pace a try for practice at the track, adjust up or down to find a pace that is challenging to get through the workout, but doable. Now you’re on your way to a new PR!

A number of runners down at the track have said, off handedly, that they should have me set them up with a schedule for their next “big” race. I am more than happy to look at someone’s training and make suggestion that might enhance their training. I have a form that will help you help me get the appropriate insight into your training so we can set up a suitable program.

5K/10K workout

10 Lap Time Trial, 3 min on, 3 R

10 laps run uptempo (by effort), 3 minutes quick, 3 minutes recovery, until ten laps have been covered

Distance Focus (more than 10K as max race distance) same as above

The ten lap time trial is a fitness measurement that allows you to compare the fitness level you are currently at with a measurement you’ve taken previously or with one you will take in the future. The idea is that your going to run “uptempo” for the first three minutes then ”coast” the next three in an effort to recover. The idea is to run the ten laps as quickly as possible without turning the workout into ten laps all out effort. As a runner gains fitness, the speed for the “uptempo” 3 minutes will likely increase. Additionally, the “coast” speed will also improve, meaning through improved fitness, the total time in which it takes to cover ten laps will get faster. *** Important! it’s imperative that you keep track of your results. Unless you have something to compare it to, the end time will be relatively usless. Really this goes for all your speed work.

Beginning runners: Prepare to cover 10 laps (2 and ½ miles) by running as easily as you can for one lap, then walking for one lap. As your fitness improves add one lap of running to the workout, while keeping the walking lap the same until you can run for 10 laps straight. Now you are ready to begin the 5K/10K workout regime.

I have recently been bitten by the injury/illness bug. Coming into the end of the school year I’ve run myself a bit ragged, having the State Championships, a four day white water canoe trip, and graduation week (I am the senior class advisor) all within a seven day period. I found myself with a case of really bad allergies (which I don’t really have) that turned into a cold and fever that lasted on now for over a week. And prior to all this, I had some leg issues, some chest injury issues after the Tough Mudder, and gastrointestinal stuff that saw me more “off” than on with my running as of late.

My performance is slipping. I haven’t raced much, so you might ask how I know my performance isn’t where it should be? Through my training. I’ve been keeping a pretty consistent training log now since 2003. I can go back, see what I used to do for both training and racing, see how I felt and what I’ve run for times. And while much of the stuff I’ve been doing of late has held up time wise in comparison, there is a lot less of it. Just last night, in doing the Torture 1200 workout, while aiming for sub 20 minute 5K pace, I was only able to complete two reps, when I would normally complete 4 to 5.

But I was cooked. The last 500 meters were a struggle to maintain form and speed. My breathing was elevated as I feel my lung capacity is only around 75% due to this stinking cold. But even given that, my legs started burning on the last lap. I could have done more, but not at the goal pace I was shooting for.

Which leaves me with the question, What to do? I don’t really want to aim for slower goals. I don’t feel I’ve reached my post high school peak yet, so I still intend to concentrate on running faster. My base has slipped at this point below last year’s, and last year I could train like an animal. I ran the two highest mileage weeks I had ever done, 67 and 73.

With school over, I get a chance to recalibrate a little. The summer schedule should allow me some down time in which to get myself back on track. I’m hoping some consistency will do the trick.

But in addition to getting my physical being back in order, I also think one of the issues is lack of focus. At this time last year I knew I was going to run the Mount Desert Island marathon and had already set my schedule up to get ready to run it. I’m choosing not to run it this year, it’s logistically very difficult during the fall cross country season and with the Boston qualifying standard becoming even tougher, if I intend to chase it, it’s not happening at MDI.

So my mind has been working on what is the challenge this year. Do I plan for a fall marathon? Do I forget about qualifying for Boston, (as I think it will take running at least ten minutes faster than the standard to get in), and find some other pretty big goal to go after. I’m leaning towards Rocktoberfest in early October, either the half or the full marathon, but just haven’t decided is that the main goal.I want to think it is, so I can mentally get invested in a “real” training goal and give chase to a time.

I’m hoping, and I believe that, once I’ve given myself a specific goal, something to point towards, the training will more readily fall into place. I’ve seen this happen not only with my own training but also with my athletes. Often they come into the season without specific goals (in order to not put pressure on themselves) but when we develop a goal for them, they come around to meet the challenge of that goal.

It’s important to have goals, that’s what spurs you in the right direction in training. At the track when I mention that the focus of my track workouts is to improve one’s 5K time often I hear either someone doesn’t have a goal time or hasn’t run 5K in so long they have no idea. While I’m sure this is often true, focusing in on where you want your performance to go is really the only way to get it there. So I’m officially giving myself a kick in the pants, and symbolically the same to the rest of you who haven’t made the commitment either to do just that. Develop a goal, give ourselves direction, and get out there this summer and go after it.

See you out there!

5K/10K workout

10 x 200 meters CONT with 200 meter recovery

10 continuously run 200 meter repeats, at goal 5K race pace, with a recovery jog of 200 meters, starting with a recovery 200 as well

Distance Focus (more than 10K as max race distance)

10 x 200 CONT w/200m R

10 minutes easy recovery running

10 x 200 CONT w/ 200 m R

This workout can be measured many different ways which is why I consider it my bread and butter workout. If your tuning up for a race, by running the “quick” repeat section at race pace you prep your legs for the speed you want them to move at for the race. Run the recovery real easy and it’s a nice tuneup before the race. If you want more strength from the workout, add an extra set of CONT 200 repeats to bulk up the mileage. If you want a more tempo based workout, run the “quick” repeats at race pace, but only back off a little on the recovery sections. If we are doing more than one set, we’ll run right at pace for the first ten, recover how we need, and time the entire workout. On the second set, we’ll decrease recovery time and towards the end of the set, start cutting down the at pace time so we are going faster. Then a comparison of the two sets can be measured against each other.

Beginning runners Prepare to cover 10 laps (2 and ½ miles) by running as easily as you can for one lap, then walking for one lap. As your fitness improves add one lap of running to the workout, while keeping the walking lap the same until you can run for 10 laps straight. Now you are ready to begin the 5K/10K workout regime.